When you least expect to find a new friend

Returning to Alaska after my father's heart surgery a few weeks ago, the need to check an "oversized" case brought me to the Alaska Airlines counter in Pittsburgh. I was stressed about my pop, stressed about having to check my case and I knew I'd be stressed after a long flight home.

The agent at the counter couldn't find my flight in AA's system. Another agent joined the search on the tiny monitor. The two pointed at the monitor, mumbled under their breath, and then broke it to me that my flight from Pittsburgh to Seattle was going to arrive four minutes after my flight from Seattle to Anchorage left. Ugh.

Mary Werner, the counter agent for Alaska Airlines, smiled and said she'd have to shuffle my flights. She said I might have to stay overnight in Pittsburgh. She could see the stress in my face, and then asked a coworker if he thought there were any options. The two pointed at the monitor, mumbled under their breath, and then Mary told me they found another flight, with a better layover and she rebooked me on it! The stress bled away from my face and a small smile appeared.

Off I went, dragging an enormous case, over to the TSA counter. Paperwork in order. Locks secured. Off it went. Next to get myself through the security checkpoint.

Shoes off. Piled my worldly possessions in multiple bins. Stepped through the whirly sniffer thing. Gathered my bins. Shoes back on, and down to the tram I went. Another stressful hurdle completed.

Tram maps always seem silly, and unnecessarily stressful – even if just a little. You get on, it stops, you get off. We need a map for this?

So as I wait for the arrival of the tram, my new friend appears to be approaching the tram for a ride, too. Mary is on her way to a gate to help her co-workers get folks on their flight, efficiently, with a smile. She's really off to make more friends, I thought.

She stops when I wave, "Hello, again!" She noted the map to me and the stop where my gate was, and we step onto the tram.

With some quick acceleration and then hard braking, we're at the stop. Check the gate number on my boarding pass, again, and start the short walk to the gate. Guess who's there? Mary.

The flight is packed. The gate crew are asking passengers to freely check bags due to the expected shortage of overhead bins on the flight. We approached the gate with carry-on's in hand and everyone smiles. "Old" friends are united again and bags are checked, and all the stress has now vanished as I slipped into one of the chairs at the gate waiting to board.

In newspaper speak, I have buried the lead, or maybe I just wanted to show you how one person can really make a difference, big or small. Mary Werner, one of the many Alaska Airlines employees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania really made a difference for me that day. She wasn't asked to do those little extra things for me, they didn't take long, but she did them. And she checked in on me a second time. And then she, now an old friend, helped me one last time. A very stressful week with trip that ended with me thinking there is still hope for our world because a new friend helped me out – maybe a tad melodramatic, I suppose, but that's how I felt coming home to Alaska.

Publisher J. David McChesney, a new Alaskan, travels often and, as an optimist, likes to note the kindness of friends and strangers from his travels.